Elsevier

Chemosphere

Volume 261, December 2020, 127732
Chemosphere

Antimony and PET bottles: Checking facts

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.127732Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Most bottled water is sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles.

  • Antimony is present in bottled waters because used as a catalyst in PET production.

  • Antimony concentrations are usually below regulated values.

  • Faulty analytical practices and lack of well-designed studies in existing literature.

  • Progress needs a better understanding of the structure of the bottle PET polymer.

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, bottled water has gained in popularity reaching high sales world-wide. Most of this water is sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. About 15 years ago, the presence of antimony in water in those PET bottles raised concerns and studies on the subject have been regularly published since then. This review aims to evaluate whether the use of good analytical practices and the correct design of these studies support the accepted facts (i.e., PET is the origin of antimony presence in bottled waters, antimony concentrations are usually below regulated values, temperature increasing favours antimony leaching). The detailed analysis of published data has confirmed these facts but has also revealed frequency of faulty analytical practices and a lack of well-designed studies. A better understanding of the structure of PET polymer in the bottles, coupled with statistically-robust antimony release experiments, is required to progress in the field.

Keywords

Antimony
Polyethylene terephthalate
Bottled water
Leaching
Migration

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